From Social Work to Social Impact: Growing at 1Password

beep beep. My pager goes off. Just then the phone rings. Meanwhile, there is a customer sitting across from me who needs a place to sleep tonight. Looking at my schedule, the rest of the week is blocked with days back to back with clients, and I have a long list of patients waiting for appointments in my inbox. And it’s only Tuesday.

For seven years, I was a social worker in community mental health care, and I was passionate about counseling my clients and helping connect them to the resources they needed. Helping people with psychosocial needs was meaningful and important work, but I felt anxious, tired, and overwhelmed most of the time. It took some thought, but I slowly realized that I wanted to use my skills in a different way.

A friend introduced me to a guy who worked at a cybersecurity startup called Collide. He asked if I would ever want to bring my people skills to a people operations role at a B2B cybersecurity SaaS startup that had recently raised a Series B round of funding. I went to Google to look up some words: b2b, Mother in law And Series BI immediately realized I didn’t understand half of what I was reading, but I knew I needed a change, I took on the People Operations role with the hopes that some of my relationship-building skills would translate to a new setting, I didn’t really know what it meant at the time,

After my first meeting at my new job (called All-Hands, which was new to me), the list of concepts I had on Google became very long. (What dog food?)I’ve never used Slack before (When do you post to a channel vs. direct message?)I looked up definitions, read books, took free webinars and somehow, managed to understand a few things, Over time, the initial shock of working in such a different environment wore off and I realized that the skills I had developed as a social worker had enabled me to build positive relationships and a supportive work culture,

Two years later, our startup was acquired by 1Password. From there, I had the opportunity to apply for a new role in corporate social responsibility, which would enable me to work on the company’s community impact including educational programs, corporate philanthropy, and employee volunteerism.

1 working on password

Taking on so many new types of projects at 1Password was challenging, but I realized that some of the skills from my social work days were needed here too. When I had to create project plans for company-wide volunteer programs, my ability to quickly write client notes and treatment plans was needed. When selecting organizations to make corporate donations to, and supporting one of our discount programs, I was able to draw on my experiences working in community care. 1Password for Nonprofits,

It was a big change from working in a busy hospital clinic every day to working behind a screen with remote colleagues around the world, but there were some similarities. A hospital clinic is a high-performance environment – ​​you have to move quickly and efficiently, test and assess risk, and always put the needs of the humans you serve first, just as we do here at 1Password. This work requires building relationships between teams to understand their vision to work toward our goal of a safer, simpler digital world for all. I partner with our Strong Unique Voices program to help employee resource groups match donations to support their communities, and team with our marketing department to promote our programs in the press and on social media.

Instead of facilitating group therapy, I now facilitate conversations with our 1Password for Good committee. We’re focused on our company’s impact on the world, making sure we create equitable ways for our employees to get involved in our philanthropic work and give back to their communities.

How 1Password supported my change

1Password has given me an environment to learn, grow and take risks in new areas. The company invested in my development, providing support for my education so I could earn a certificate in sustainability and social impact from CU Boulder. When a colleague took parental leave I had the opportunity to dive into the work of a different team, giving me exposure to multiple areas of the business and the ability to build relationships with cross-functional stakeholders.

At 1Password, you can tell who you are now and who you were supposed to work with. I’m still advocating for equitable systems and promoting positive impact, but I’m doing it in a different setting. Like a hospital, 1Password is an environment where we work together towards a common goal, always keeping our values ​​in mind. The stakes and rewards are high.

Here, we value diverse perspectives, respect transferable skills, and are provided a supportive environment for growth.

A few years later, I’m happy to have traded my pager beeps for Slack pings, therapy sessions for Zoom meetings, and the ability to positively impact many people through us. 1 password for good programsI still have to look up words and abbreviations on the Internet that I don’t know, but the list is much shorter these days,